Child Custody and Visitation Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota
What is the difference between physical and legal custody?
What is the difference between physical and legal custody?
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00:04
people often ask you know what’s the
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significance of legal custody what’s the
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significance of physical custody and
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they’ll say i want both exclusively and
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and that’s that’s it and nothing else so
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first of all legal custody is by far the
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most important custody
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legal custody means that you have
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influence
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and
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a say over the child’s medical care
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their education
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and their religion
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those are the main the three main
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aspects of legal child custody
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so
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if
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one parent is maybe interfering with
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the child’s medical care and arguing
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over who the doctor is going to be all
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the time and canceling appointments when
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they don’t agree uh that that they
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should be seeing that doctor when
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they’re getting in the way of education
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and always trying to
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get a
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get the child into a different school or
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they sign a child up for a school
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without getting the other parents
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approval those are indicators that that
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person should not have sole legal
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custody
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and it’s also
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an indicator that the person who is
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able to
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work through these things in a
01:20
diplomatic way with the other parent
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they could end up getting an award of
01:24
legal custody there’s no real
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presumption of joint legal custody but
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in minnesota
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unless you’re
01:33
really getting in the way of of the
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child’s development in some way if
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you’re a drug addict and not able to
01:39
parent if you don’t have if you can’t
01:42
maintain a home
01:44
if you’re living out of state
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and don’t come back to the state very
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often
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then it’s very unlikely that uh that you
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would be awarded joint legal custody
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but for people who are
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sincerely working on on parenting their
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child together
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joint legal custody is generally the way
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the court is going to go
02:04
physical custody
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is a different animal it’s not as
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important as it used to be
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i’d say the main issues with
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physical custody are this it’s physical
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custody is about just the care of the
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child day to day what’s going on
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when the child is in your care during
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the day that’s physical custody in the
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past
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physical sole physical custody was
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usually awarded to the parent who had
02:30
the majority of the parenting time
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now if both parents are engaged
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joint physical custody is awarded to
02:38
both of them
02:39
an award of physical custody
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used to have more significance
02:43
sole physical custody meant in back in
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the day
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that a parent could move out of state
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with the child
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without permission
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they could take a child move out without
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the permission of the other parent and
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without and without a need to ask the
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court if they could take the child and
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relocate to another state well now
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even if you have that sole physical
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custody award
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of the case law has evolved and there is
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there’s no way that you can relocate out
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of state move out of state with a child
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if the other parent has court-ordered
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parenting time and is residing in the
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state of minnesota
Minneapolis, MN family law attorney Michael Fink explains the difference between physical and legal custody.
